Day: August 30, 2026

China has mapped the seabed of its claimed waters including the South China Sea, with twice the resolution and up to five times the accuracy of methods used by other countries after more than two decades of effort, according to scientists involved in the project. The importance of such work was underscored in October 2021, when the US Navy’s Seawolf-class nuclear submarine USS Connecticut struck an uncharted seamount while submerged in the South China Sea. The collision grounded the vessel and injured 11 crew members. A subsequent investigation blamed poor…

Trita Parsi is co-founder and executive vice-president of the Quincy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign policy and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has written four books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel. Born in Iran, Parsi moved to Sweden with his family as a child and then to the United States as an adult. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series,…

The People’s Liberation Army is increasingly embracing broader “systems-oriented warfare” rather than relying on individual weapons platforms – a shift Taiwanese analysts say could pose new challenges to the island’s defences. Instead of focusing on individual weapons, the PLA has progressively emphasised integrating intelligence, AI, communications, weapons, logistics and infrastructure into an overall combat system, they warn. “The PLA is no longer concerned only with whose weapons are stronger, but with who can connect different weapons to generate greater overall combat power,” said Chen Chia-sheng, a researcher at a government-funded…

Earlier this month, when US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened sanctions against any nation continuing to purchase Iranian crude oil, he did not name China. He did not need to. China, the Islamic Republic’s largest oil customer, is squarely in Washington’s crosshairs. The US has already unveiled new sanctions against 60 individuals, companies and vessels linked to Iranian trade, including some in mainland China and Hong Kong. Just three months after the May summit between President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump appeared to stabilise bilateral trade relations, the fragile…

For many, losing hair isn’t just a cosmetic worry – it is a deeply personal struggle that can chip away at confidence, social life and mental health. Now, a surprising candidate is offering new hope: a pill originally designed to treat arthritis. The condition is called alopecia areata. It is an autoimmune disease where the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks hair follicles, causing unpredictable hair loss. Sometimes it is just a few patches but in severe cases, the entire scalp, eyebrows and even body hair can vanish. Until now,…